Primary producers are the organisms in an ecosystem that produce biomass from inorganic compounds (autotrophs). In almost all cases these are photosynthetically active organisms (plants, cyanobacteria and a number of other unicellular organisms; see article on photosynthesis). However, there are examples of archea (unicellular organisms) that produce biomass from the oxidation of inorganic chemical compounds (chemoautotrophs) in hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean.
Fungi and other organisms who gain their biomass from oxidizing organic materials are called decomposers and are not primary producers.
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“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.”
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